«Non giocate col fuoco!». L’infanzia italiana, la ridefinizione dell’identità di genere maschile e la campagna per il disarmo del giocattolo (1946-1956)

Autore: Juri Meda
In: Genesis. XIII/2, 2014
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Abstract

«Don’t Play with Fire!». Italian children, redefinition of male gender identity and the campaign for toy disarmament (1946-1956)
This paper analyzes the struggle to forge a new male gender identity fought in postwar Italy; it explores in particular the attempt to counteract the militarization of the child that had been promoted by the fascist regime through a relentless media campaign for the disarmament of toy weapons. In a country engaged in the effort to recover from a devastating war, with a high rate of children killed or injured by unexploded ordnance, the fight against the proliferation of toy weapons acquired a high symbolic value. It was a struggle – as happened also with comic books and cinema – conducted on several fronts and by organizations located on opposite sides of the political spectrum: both Catholics and Communists, and their respective women’s organizations, in fact, pledged to boycott the so-called “war-toys”; against their efforts, the trade associations of the toy industry sought to defend their products, declaring their harmlessness and presenting them as a possible driver of national economic recovery. In the background of this clash hovered the specter of the Cold War and the arms race, together with the raising of peace movements of different kinds. In all its different and contrasting aspects, the struggle over toy weapons marked the desire to definitively put aside balilla and sciuscià, to build a new and democratic model of childhood.